Well, Brandywine Books and probably about a dozen others got to it before I did, but anyway today is approximately the 440th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. How’s this for an appropriate quote?
“Do thy worst old Time; despite thy wrong, my love shall in my verse ever live young.” Sonnet 19
Actually, my favorite Shakespeare quotations come from the plays.
Hamlet:
Hamlet: Denmark’s a prison.
Rosencrantz: Then is the world one.
Hamlet: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons. Denmark being one of the worst.
Merchant of Venice:
Antonio: In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself.
As You Like It:
Rosalind: Your experience makes you sad: I would rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad, and to travel for it, too.
Rosalind (again, my personal favorite): Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
I could go on, but I’d rather have comments. What’s your favorite Shakespeare quotation?
An incomplete list of favorites:
Julius Caesar
Act 2, Sc 1
Brutus: … Between the acting of a dreadful thing/And the first motion, all the interim is/Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.
Act 2, Sc 2
Caesar: Cowards dies many times before their deaths….
Twelfth Night
Act 3, Sc 4
… [S]wear horrible, for it comes to pass that a terrible oath with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.
Much Ado about Nothing
Act 2, Sc 3
Benedick: Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending….
Richard III
Act 1, Sc 3
Richard: And thus I clothe my naked villainy… And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
Romeo and Juliet
Act 2, Sc 3
Friar: Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.
Hamlet
Act 2, Sc 2
Hamlet: O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space — were it not that I have bad dreams.
Act 3, Sc 2
Hamlet: Let me cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
Henry V
Act V
Henry: O Kate, nice customs curtsey to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the short list of a country’s fashion. We are the makers of manners, Kate, and the libery that follows our places stops the mouths of all fault-finders….
“Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.” Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing
“One woman is fair; yet I am well: another wise; yet I am well: another virtuous; yet I am well: but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.” Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing
“O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlating redemption for this.” Dogberry, Much Ado About Nothing
“Now fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honour I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now, beshrew my father’s ambition! he was thinking of civil wars when he got me; therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that, when I come to woo ladies I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax the better I shall appear: my comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst, and thou shalt wear me, it thou wear me, better and better.” Henry V, Henry V.
“Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
And thou shalt be canoniz’d, cardinal.” Constance, King John